A district IT director orders the headset the help desk already uses. It is a good headset. Then it meets a sixth-grade computer lab, where the mic boom gets bent backward, the cord gets wound around a chair leg, and the foam ear pads absorb everything. Six months later the district is buying again. The Smart-Trek was built for that room from the start.
For K-12, the HamiltonBuhl Smart-Trek Deluxe USB headset (SKU ST2BKU, $25.96) is the better buy. It was designed for grades 6-12 shared use: a steel-reinforced flexible gooseneck microphone, a five-foot chew, kink, and knot-resistant braided Dura-Cord, easy-clean leatherette cushions, and in-line volume, all at roughly a third to a half the street price of a Jabra Evolve 20. The Evolve 20 is a well-made contact-center headset, but its plastic boom, foam-topped pads, and unreinforced cable are built for one adult at one desk.
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| Model | Classroom Fit | Built For | Price Per Unit | Models Compared |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top Choice | Grades 6-12 | $25.96 | ★★★★★ | |
Jabra Evolve 20 UC Stereo |
Office / contact center | Roughly $50-$80 street | ★★★☆☆ |
The Smart-Trek Deluxe USB headset is HamiltonBuhl's distance-learning, testing, and computer-lab workhorse, sold at $25.96 per unit by Encore Data Products under SKU ST2BKU. It is designed to stand up to the K-12 environment and is aimed at grades 6-12.
Headset specifications:
Microphone specifications:
Compatible with PCs, Macs, laptops, and most gaming systems. The steel gooseneck is the detail that matters most: a student will bend that boom, and a steel-reinforced gooseneck bends back instead of snapping off.
Read More : https://www.encoredataproducts.com/usb-headsets/hamilton-buhl-smart-trek-deluxe-stereo-headset-with-in-line-volume-control-and-usb-plug/The Jabra Evolve 20 is a widely deployed corporate USB headset. It has a noise-cancelling boom microphone, an in-line call-control unit with mute and volume, a busy-light on some variants, leatherette-over-foam ear cushions, and UC certification for the major softphone platforms. In an office, it deserves its reputation.
Move it into a middle-school lab and the economics invert. The plastic boom and its hinge are the part students break. The unjacketed cable is the part students kink and yank. The in-line call controller adds buttons that do nothing in an exam environment but plenty in a chat window. And at two to three times the price, every one of those breakages costs the district two to three times as much to replace.
Excellent office headset, expensive lesson in a student lab
Excellent office headset, expensive lesson in a student lab
The Jabra Evolve 20 is a good headset that answers a different question. It is designed so one adult can take calls comfortably for eight hours at one desk. A school lab headset has the opposite job: survive thirty different students a day, get wiped down between periods, and cost little enough that a broken one is an annoyance rather than a budget event. On that test, the plastic boom, the plain cable, and the price all count against it.
Every distinguishing feature on the Smart-Trek is a response to something that happens in a school. The steel-reinforced gooseneck exists because students bend mic booms. The five-foot braided PVC-jacketed Dura-Cord exists because cords get chewed, kinked, and knotted. The easy-clean leatherette cushions exist because the headset gets handed to a different student next period. The snap-in adjustable headband exists because a shared cart serves sixth graders and seniors.
The specs hold up too: 40mm drivers, 32 ohm impedance, 50Hz-20KHz response, 105dB sensitivity, and an omnidirectional steel-gooseneck mic running 50Hz-16KHz. That covers distance learning, testing, language practice, recording, and gaming systems on PCs and Macs.
At $25.96 per unit (SKU ST2BKU) with bulk pricing and school purchase-order terms from Encore Data Products, the Smart-Trek costs a fraction of an enterprise headset and is built for the room it is going into.